The CEO of conservative-friendly social media platform Parler said Big Tech did not notify him until just before Amazon, Apple and Google pulled the plug on him.
Following the January 6 riot in the Capitol, Google Play and Apple revoked access to John Matze’s app and Amazon Web Services started him up from his servers, letting him know 24 hours in advance.
“It’s very, very interesting that they all never indicated on the exact same day, without prior notice, that there was a serious or material problem with our app,” CEO Matze told Fox News presenter Mark Levin. “But on the same day, you know, all on the same day, they send us these very threatening messages.”
And Amazon, as usual, [was] basically saying, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen material problems. There are no problems. ‘You know, they played it very casually. And so we still had, you know, on the 8th and 9th, you know, we had no real indication that this, you know, was deadly serious, “he told Levin in an interview that will air Sunday on” Life. , Liberty & Levin. “
A snippet of the interview was released earlier on Sunday.
Matze told Levin that in the early days of this year, Parler was the fast-growing social media site.
“In some of the last days before we got the ax from Amazon Web Services, we had created nearly a million new accounts that last day,” Matze said.
“We were number one in the App Store. We were above Facebook, we were above TikTok, we were above YouTube, above Instagram, above every app in the App Store in the United States. We were number one before we got the ax. “
Matze, who said he and his family had to go into hiding because of death threats, has sued Amazon for violating US antitrust law.
Amazon responded by saying that Parler ignored repeated calls to remove violent content from its website, including death threats against public figures.
In his filing, Amazon accused Parler of helping instigate the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol that resulted in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol Police officer.
After Twitter, Facebook, and other tech sites banned President Trump, the president’s followers migrated to Parler, hoping to find a less restrictive online environment. The fact is, you don’t have to worry.
Matze defended his two-year-old site against allegations that he had circulated objectionable content.
You know, our ads weren’t intrusive. We did not use data to predict people or to mine human data. We presented ads in what I describe as humane, so we did what I think is best for ads, which is to respect people’s privacy, ”he said.
“We made huge amounts of money from organic small businesses and helped them. And so we have proven our model. We have proven our growth in the market, ”continued Matze.